Weak States Are ‘Sleeping Giants’ for US Security

Almost three years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the United States is still falling short in its ability to deal with weak, failing or failed states, which increasingly threaten U.S. national security, says a major report...

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What Would Reagan Do?

I was nonplussed by all the Reagan encomia until I caught his address to the '92 GOP convention on C-Span late Sunday night. He was showing his age, but that essential glimmer still came through. I was actually there in Houston when Reagan spoke, though I don't...

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Pride, Patriotism, and Propaganda

After declaring a war on terrorism, the Bush Administration has gotten us into two unwinnable wars, Afghanistan and Iraq. The war on terrorism is not a war; it is a state of affairs. There is no one enemy to conquer, no land to capture, no way to know when we have won...

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War! War! War!

In the words of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind, Memorial Day weekend was all about "War, war, war!" In addition to the real ceremonies, the History Channel and the old movie channels featured nonstop war movies and documentaries. This was quickly followed by...

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How High Does the Abu Ghraib Scandal Go?

A classified Pentagon report, providing a series of legal arguments apparently intended to justify abuses and torture against detainees, appears to undermine public assurances by senior U.S. officials, including President George W. Bush, that the military would never...

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Superpower or Superdebtor?

Since the passage of the "Iraq Liberation Act" in 1998, the U.S. government has spent more than 40 million taxpayer dollars on the Iraqi National Congress and its leader Ahmed Chalabi. As we now know, Chalabi in turn fed the U.S. government lies about Iraq’s...

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The War on Terror: A Persistent Debacle

I just said goodbye to my son, age 21, as he went off to complete his studies at the University of Toronto. We were cleaning out the garage during the two weeks my son was home. I came across some old pictures and documents from my years in the Navy, including a copy...

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No Real Choice

Once more, Americans will be forced to vote for a man instead of a policy. It doesn't say much for self-government that the American people are almost never given a chance to vote on major policy issues. The trouble is that Sen. John Kerry, as his campaign has...

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TURN TOWARD THE LEFT

A Note from the Author: This is a continuation of my Wednesday column on the formerly libertarian Cato Institute's complete capitulation to the war hysteria, and is best read in that context. To summarize briefly: in endorsing Attorney General John Ashcroft's decision...

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